View source for Yoni

==History==
[[File:Linga-Yoni.jpg|thumbnail|right|[[Lingam]]-yoni at the [[Cát Tiên sanctuary]], Lâm Đồng province, Vietnam]] 
The reverence for yoni, state Jones and Ryan, is probably pre-Vedic. Figurines recovered from Zhob valley and dated to the 4th millennium BCE show pronounced breasts and yoni, and these may have been fertility symbols used in prehistoric times that ultimately evolved into spiritual symbols.<ref name="JonesRyan2006p516" /> According to David Lemming, the yoni worship tradition dates to the pre-Vedic period, over the 4000 BCE to 1000 BCE period.<ref name="Leeming2001p205">{{Cite book |last=Leeming |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QRwgAQAAQBAJ |title=A Dictionary of Asian Mythology |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-19-512053-0 |page=205}}</ref>

The yoni has served as a divine symbol from ancient times, and it may well be the oldest spiritual icon not only in India but across many ancient cultures.<ref name="Amazzone2012p27" /> Some in the orthodox Western cultures, states the Indologist Laura Amazzone, have treated the feminine sexual organs and sexuality in general as a taboo subject, but in Indic religions and other ancient cultures the yoni has long been accepted as profound cosmological and philosophical truth, of the feminine potential and power, one mysteriously interconnected with the natural periodic cycles of moon, earth and existence.<ref name="Amazzone2012p27" />

[[File:Jatalinga sur cuve à ablution (musée Guimet) (5153565239).jpg|thumbnail|A ''jatalinga'' with ''yoni''.]]
The yoni is considered to be an abstract representation of [[Shakti]] and [[Devi]], the creative force that moves through the entire universe. In [[tantra]], yoni is the [[origin of life]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Constance |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OgMmceadQ3gC&pg=PA516 |title=Encyclopedia of hinduism |last2=Ryan |first2=James D. |publisher=Infobase publishing |year=2006 |isbn=0-8160-7564-6 |page=156 & 157}}</ref>

=== Archaeology ===
The colonial era archaeologists [[John Marshall (archaeologist)|John Marshall]] and [[Ernest J. H. Mackay|Ernest Mackay]] proposed that certain polished stones with holes found at Harappan sites may be evidence of yoni-linga worship in Indus Valley civilisation.<ref name="aparpola1985">{{Cite journal |last=Parpola |first=Asko |author-link=Asko Parpola |year=1985 |title=The Sky Garment – A study of the Harappan religion and its relation to the Mesopotamian and later Indian religions |journal=Studia Orientalia |publisher=The Finnish Oriental Society |volume=57 |pages=101–107}}</ref> Scholars such as [[Arthur Llewellyn Basham]] dispute whether such artifacts discovered at the archaeological sites of Indus Valley sites are yoni.<ref name=aparpola1985/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Basham |first=Arthur Llewellyn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LscvuQEACAAJ |title=The Wonder that was India: A Survey of the History and Culture of the Indian Subcontinent Before the Coming of the Muslims |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson (1986 Reprint) |year=1967 |isbn=978-0-283-99257-5 |page=24}}, Quote: "It has been suggested that certain large ring-shaped stones are formalized representations of the female regenerative organ and were symbols of the Mother Goddess, but this is most doubtful."</ref> For example, Jones and Ryan state that lingam/yoni shapes have been recovered from the archaeological sites at [[Harappa]] and [[Mohenjo-daro]], part of the [[Indus Valley civilisation]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Constance |title=Encyclopedia of Hinduism |last2=Ryan |first2=James D. |publisher=Infobase Publishing |year=2006 |page=516}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Chawla |first=Jyotsna |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EX3XAAAAMAAJ |title=The R̥gvedic deities and their iconic forms |publisher=Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers |year=1990 |isbn=978-81-215-0082-1 |page=185}}</ref> In contrast, Jane McIntosh states that truncated ring stones with holes were once considered as possibly yonis. Later discoveries at the Dholavira site, and further studies, have proven that these were pillar components because the "truncated ring stones with holes" are integral architectural components of the pillars. However, states McIntosh, the use of these structures in architecture does not rule out their simultaneous religious significance as yoni.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McIntosh |first=Jane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1AJO2A-CbccC&pg=PA287 |title=The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-57607-907-2 |pages=286–287}}</ref>

According to the Indologist [[Asko Parpola]], "it is true that Marshall's and Mackay's hypotheses of linga and yoni worship by the Harappans has rested on rather slender grounds, and that for instance the interpretation of the so-called ring-stones as yonis seems untenable".<ref name=aparpola1985/> He quotes Dales 1984 paper, which states "with the single exception of the unidentified photography of a realistic phallic object in Marshall's report, there is no archaeological evidence to support claims of special sexually-oriented aspects of Harappan religion".<ref name=aparpola1985/> However, adds Parpola, a re-examination at Indus Valley sites suggest that the Mackay's hypothesis cannot be ruled out because erotic and sexual scenes such as ithyphallic males, naked females, a human couple having intercourse and trefoil imprints have now been identified at the Harappan sites.<ref name=aparpola1985/> The "finely polished circular stand" found by Mackay may be yoni although it was found without the linga. The absence of linga, states Parpola, may be because it was made from wood which did not survive.<ref name=aparpola1985/>

===Sanskrit literature===
The term ''yoni'' and its derivatives appear in ancient medicine and surgery-related Sanskrit texts such as the ''[[Sushruta Samhita]]'' and ''[[Charaka Samhita]]''. In this context, ''yoni'' broadly refers to "female sexual and procreative organs".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meulenbeld |first=Gerrit Jan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rhc028gqXKIC |title=The Sitapitta Group of Disorders (Urticaria and Similar Syndromes) and Its Development in Ayurvedic Literature from Early Times to the Present Day |publisher=Barkhuis |year=2010 |isbn=978-90-77922-76-7 |pages=106 note 35}}</ref> According to Indologists Rahul Das and Gerrit Meulenbeld known for their translations and reviews of ancient Sanskrit medical and other literature, ''yoni'' "usually denotes the vagina or the vulva, in a technical sense it also includes the uterus along with these; moreover, yoni- can at times mean simply 'womb, uterus' too, though it [Cakrapanidata's commentary on ''Sushruta Samhita''] does so relatively seldom".<ref name="MeulenbeldLeslie1991p57">{{Cite book |title=Medical literature from India, Sri Lanka, and Tibet |date=1991 |publisher=E.J. Brill |isbn=90-04-09522-5 |location=Leiden |oclc=24501435}}</ref> According to Amit Rupapara et al., ''yoni-roga'' means "gynecological disorders" and ''yoni-varti'' means "vaginal suppository".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Rupapara |first1=Amit |last2=Donga |first2=Shilpa |last3=Harisha |first3=CR |last4=Shukla |first4=Vinay |year=2014 |title=A preliminary physicochemical evaluation of Darvyadi Yoni Varti: A compound Ayurvedic formulation |journal=AYU |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=467–470 |doi=10.4103/0974-8520.159048 |pmc=4492037 |pmid=26195915 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The ''[[Charaka Samhita]]'' dedicates its 30th chapter in Chikitsa Sthana to ''yoni-vyapath'' or "gynecological disorders".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bhavana |first=KR |year=2014 |title=Medical geography in Charaka Samhita |journal=AYU |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=371–377 |doi=10.4103/0974-8520.158984 |pmc=4492020 |pmid=26195898 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Charaka-samhita: translated into English |year=1978 |volume=4 |pages=1852–1863 with footnotes |translator=Avinash Chandra Kaviratna }}, Quote: "Yoni literally means vulva, and vyapat means disease, but the term yonivyapat has been used in a larger sense - meaning all diseases of the female organs of generation manifested in vulva. The chapter [of Charaka Samhita] comprises treatment of the diseases of uterus, vagina [...]"</ref>

In sexuality-related Sanskrit literature, as well as Tantric literature, yoni connotes many layers of meanings. Its literal meaning is "female genitalia", but it also encompasses other meanings such as "womb, origin, and source".<ref name="Blackledge2004p45" /> In some Indic literature, yoni means vagina,<ref name="Blackledge2004p45" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Korda |first1=Joanna B. |last2=Goldstein |first2=Sue W. |last3=Sommer |first3=Frank |year=2010 |title=Sexual Medicine History: The History of Female Ejaculation |journal=The Journal of Sexual Medicine |publisher=Elsevier BV |volume=7 |issue=5 |pages=1968–1975 |doi=10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.01720.x |pmid=20233286}}</ref> and other organs regarded as "divine symbol of sexual pleasure, the matrix of generation and the visible form of Shakti".<ref name="Blackledge2004p45">{{Cite book |last=Blackledge |first=Catherine |url=https://archive.org/details/storyofv00cath |title=The Story of V: A Natural History of Female Sexuality |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8135-3455-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/storyofv00cath/page/44 44]–45 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

===Orientalist literature===
The colonial era Orientalists and Christian missionaries, raised in the Victorian mold where sex and sexual imagery were a taboo subject, were shocked by and were hostile to the yoni iconography and reverence they witnessed.<ref name=dasgupta107/><ref>{{Cite book |last=McGetchin |first=Douglas T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PHVRDSM-tyMC |title=Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism: Ancient India's Rebirth in Modern Germany |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-8386-4208-5 |page=34}}</ref> The 19th and early 20th-century colonial and missionary literature described yoni, lingam-yoni, and related theology as obscene, corrupt, licentious, hyper-sexualized, puerile, impure, demonic and a culture that had become too feminine and dissolute.<ref name=dasgupta107/><ref name="Ramos2017p56">{{Cite book |last=Ramos |first=Imma |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FRhdDgAAQBAJ |title=Pilgrimage and Politics in Colonial Bengal: The Myth of the Goddess Sati |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-351-84000-2 |pages=56–58}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Urban |first=Hugh B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VKv3AgAAQBAJ |title=The Power of Tantra: Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South Asian Studies |publisher=I.B.Tauris |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-85773-158-6 |pages=8–10}}</ref> To the Hindus, particularly the Shaivites, these icons and ideas were the abstract, a symbol of the entirety of creation and spirituality.<ref name=dasgupta107/> The colonial disparagement in part triggered the opposite reaction from Bengali nationalists, who more explicitly valorised the feminine. [[Swami Vivekananda]] called for the revival of the Mother Goddess as a feminine force, inviting his countrymen to "proclaim her to all the world with the voice of peace and benediction".<ref name="Ramos2017p56" />

According to Wendy Doniger, the terms lingam and yoni became explicitly associated with human sexual organs in the western imagination after the widely popular first ''[[Kama Sutra]]'' translation by [[Richard Francis Burton|Sir Richard Burton]] in 1883.<ref name=doniger2011p500/> In his translation, even though the original Sanskrit text does not use the words lingam or yoni for sexual organs, Burton adroitly sidestepped being viewed as obscene to the Victorian mindset by using them throughout in place of words such as penis, vulva, and vagina to discuss sex, sexual relationships and human sexual positions.<ref name=doniger2011p500/> This conscious and incorrect word substitution, states Doniger, thus served as an Orientalist means to "anthropologize sex, distance it, make it safe for English readers by assuring them, or pretending to assure them, that the text was not about real sexual organs, their sexual organs, but merely about the appendages of weird, dark people far away."<ref name="doniger2011p500">{{Cite journal |last=Doniger |first=Wendy |year=2011 |title=God's Body, or, The Lingam Made Flesh: Conflicts over the Representation of the Sexual Body of the Hindu God Shiva |journal=Social Research |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |volume=78 |pages=500–502 |number=2|doi=10.1353/sor.2011.0067 }}</ref> Similar Orientalist literature of the Christian missionaries and the British era, states Doniger, stripped all spiritual meanings and insisted on the Victorian vulgar interpretation only, which had "a negative effect on the self-perception that Hindus had of their own bodies" and they became "ashamed of the more sensual aspects of their own religious literature".<ref name="doniger2011p505">{{Cite journal |last=Doniger |first=Wendy |year=2011 |title=God's Body, or, The Lingam Made Flesh: Conflicts over the Representation of the Sexual Body of the Hindu God Shiva |journal=Social Research |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |volume=78 |pages=499–505 |number=2|doi=10.1353/sor.2011.0067 }}</ref> Some contemporary Hindus, states Doniger, in their passion to spiritualize Hinduism and for their Hindutva campaign have sought to sanitize the historic earthly sexual meanings, and insist on the abstract spiritual meaning only.<ref name=doniger2011p505/>